Jean-Paul Marat

Jean-Paul Marat was a French physician and scientist who became a political theorist and journalist during the Revolution. His periodical L'Ami du peuple established him as an unofficial link to the radical Jacobins who took power after June 1793, his writing known for its fierce tone and uncompromising attacks on revolutionary leaders and institutions. Responsibility for the September Massacres has been attributed to him, though others argue the collective mentality arose from circumstances rather than any single will. On 13 July 1793, Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathizer, assassinated him while he took a medicinal bath for a debilitating skin condition; she was executed four days later. In death he became an icon to the Montagnards and the sans-culottes, mourned by some with the prayer "O heart of Jesus! O sacred heart of Marat," and immortalized in Jacques-Louis David's painting The Death of Marat.